THE EASE & JOY OF MORNINGS (December 2018)

Join Kozan for “Ease and Joy of Mornings,” December 16—a quiet morning designed to introduce you to the art of zazen. It is an ideal entryway for beginners and even intermediate or long-time meditators who want a refresher course on this “dharma gate of joy and ease” as described by Zen Master, Dogen-Zenji.

Nomads Clinic

Since 1980, we have been going on pilgrimage to the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau with clinicians and others bringing medical support into very remote, high altitude regions. The only way we have been able to access these areas has been on foot and by horse, and the journey into these areas has always been challenging and beautiful.

Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D in medical anthropology in 1973. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, University of Virginia Medical School, Duke University Medical School, University of Connecticut Medical School, among many others. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, and was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University. From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center on pioneering work with dying cancer patients, using LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy. After the LSD project, she has continued to work with dying people and their families and to teach health care professionals as well as lay individuals on compassionate care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying and Founder of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. For the past forty years, she has been active in environmental work. She studied for a decade with Zen Teacher Seung Sahn in the Kwan Um Zen School. She received the Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh, and was given Inka by Roshi Bernie Glassman.

A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order and founder of Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order, her work and practice for more than four decades has focused on engaged Buddhism. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); The Fruitful Darkness, A Journey Through Buddhist Practice; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death; and, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.

Charles McDonald has spent his career in the Bay Area and San Francisco as a specialist in Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine. He has a passion for the outdoors, music, and service. He first joined Nomads in 2012, and serve as Medical Director for the last three years and Co-director of the clinic.

Sonam Rinchen Lama, MD, is the first Western trained physician from the area of Humla, Nepal. He received his MD degree from Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Dhulikhel, Nepal in 2011. He is a member of the Nepal Medical Council and International Society of Travel Medicine. He is Head of the Medical Department ASIA for the Karmapa's Healthcare Project; on the Rapids Response Team, Department of Community Program, Dhulikhel Hospital Kathmandu Uinversity Hospital. He has many certfications, including in trauma and disaster team response training, ultrsound, CT and MRI, pediatric neurology, and mass casualty management. He has volunteered for many organizations, including One Heart World-Wide and Upaya's Nomads Clinic and offered free medical camps in many parts of Nepal. He has served in Upaya's Nomads Clinic since 2011, and is now Co-director.

Photo Credit: Dan Lin

Nurse Tsering WangmoCo-Director of Upaya's Nepal Nomads Clinic

Tsering Wangmo grew up in Dho Tarap, Dolpo. She did her primary education in her village and got her secondary level and proficiency certificate level nursing education in Kathmandu.With the...

Tsering Wangmo grew up in Dho Tarap, Dolpo. She did her primary education in her village and got her secondary level and proficiency certificate level nursing education in Kathmandu.With the dream of making a difference in the life of her people, she started working as a nurse in the small clinic in Dho and as a part time primary level teacher in Crystal Mountain School both funded by Action Dolpo. Later on, she also worked with Menri Ponlop Rinpoche to start and run a clinic in Tsarka, Dolpo. She participated in many trainings such as Skilled Birth Attendant, community based newborn care program, family planning , rural obstetric ultrasound, dental procedures. She also worked as a trainer in training the female community health volunteers in different villages of Dolpo with One Heart Worldwide to improve the maternal and child health of these areas.

She then pursued her Bachelor in Nursing Science in Kathmandu. She is Co-director of Upaya Zen Center's Nomads Clinic that serves people in remote areas of the Himalayas.

Photo Credit: Dan Lin

Dolpo Tulku Rinpoche

Dolpo Tulku, also called Tulku Sherab Zangpo, was born into a Lama family in Dho Tarap, Dolpo, in 1982. He became a monk at Kanying Shedrub Ling Monastery, Nepal, at the age of 9 in 1991 and...

Dolpo Tulku, also called Tulku Sherab Zangpo, was born into a Lama family in Dho Tarap, Dolpo, in 1982. He became a monk at Kanying Shedrub Ling Monastery, Nepal, at the age of 9 in 1991 and was recognized by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche to be the reincarnation of the third Dolpo Nyingchung Drubthob shortly thereafter. He was then sent to Namdroling Monastery, India, to receive his monastic education under the guidance of Penor Rinpoche.

1994 the Dolpo People’s Welfare Association sponsored his grand official enthronement ceremony at Shechen Monastery, Kathmandu, in the midst of more than ten thousand natives from Dolpo and adjacent regions. Hence he got the responsibility to guide the three main monasteries, three retreat centers and the people of Dolpo. Whilst studying tantric rites and rituals in the monastery, he assumed the responsibility of a Vajracharya.

In 1997, when he was just 15 years old, he entered Nyingma Ngagyur Institute, the prestigious monastic college of Namdroling Monastery where he studied, debated and researched all the sutra and tantra teachings of Lord Buddha for ten years under more than forty scholars and masters including His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. He also studied Tibetan literature, Poetry, Tibetan History and Tibetan Religious History. He secured first division marks in all examinations. Owing to the high scholarship and experience, he was appointed junior teacher and a member of the Rigdzod Editorial Committee whilst an eighth year student.

Penor Rinpoche instructed him in the practices of the Namchö Cycle, which combines the practices of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Dolpo Tulku Rinpoche now teaches the instructions according to his students abilities.

He finished his advanced Buddhist studies in the year 2007 after which he was appointed as a full-fledged teacher at Ngagyur Nyingma Institute. Since then he has reached a status equivalent to a university professor.

In 2008 he returned for the first time to Dolpo in 17 years to visit his monasteries and to get enthroned there. He was accompanied by a German film team, who produced an award-winning documentary ‘Dolpo Tulku – Return to the Himalayas’. Since then Rinpoche has travelled extensively through Asia and Europe to teach Buddhist philosophy, give public talks on mind training, conduct seminars on stress & burn out and to raise awareness about the situation in Dolpo.

He started implementing projects in Dolpo since 2007, together with the local population. The Dolpo Tulku Charitable Foundation was registered with the Nepali government in 2010 and has the main aims to promote the protection of the environment, the improvement of the health care and the effective combination of modern and traditional education.